Chicken obsession.

I am aware that I mention chicken a lot in my writing. I just think that, for a small guy, your average chicken gives us a great deal. So, while I had cheese on toast (see previous recipe) for tea last night, I'll detail yesterday's chicken adventures. It's July, but this could have happened at any time of year in our house -- give or take the variation of a few seasonal greens from the garden.

First, you roast a large free range chicken. So about a 4 kg bird. I no longer even look at weights or timings; I just roast it breast down for half an hour or so (the oven is on 200), turn it over and cook it until the juices run clear when you pierce its thickest part: that's where the thigh meets the body. It will smell wonderful and its skin will be golden; there will be nuggets of caramelised juices around the chicken in the roasting tin.

Oh -- why roast breast down first? Because the greatest deposits of fat are on the underside, so roasting upside down allows the fat to percolate down through the meat, moistening it.

Lunch was another sublime chicken sandwich

I shredded some hot breast meat with my hands and then piled it inside a warmed tortilla with some butterhead lettuce from my neighbour's garden, a good dollop of sweet chilli pickle and the same of Greek yoghurt. A sprinkling of sea salt. I ate in the garden with the juices dripping down my front. Had to change my clothes.

Dinner for hungry young children.
Not all of this has something to do with chicken -- but perhaps it's a useful digression.

Elijah and Isaac were ravenous when they came home from school. The chicken was still warm and they ate the legs and wings with hunks of cucumber and carrot and -- I'm aware this is hideously middle class- they asked for sea salt (most specifically) to sprinkle on it.

Pudding was what we refer to as never-ending ice cream

Rather than give the children spoonfuls from a big tub, buy them a small tub each. That is, one that is, I suppose, intended to be two helpings for an adult. They get excited about this because they get to have the whole of something and each time they add more sprinkles, chocolate buttons and chocolate sauce.It's novel; it makes them happy; be careful they don't dribble in it. I suspect this breaks hygiene rules, but so far, so good. Back to the chicken.

A chicken salad for summer with seasonal variation!


Tea done, I pulled the rest of (most of) the lumps of white meat from the chicken. About five handfuls. Into a big bowl they went. Then, on a chopping board, I minced half a fresh red chilli, 4 spring onions (all the green, too!), two carrots and one yellow pepper. I added a dessertspoon of Marigold Bouillon powder, which is a trusty staple of mine: I use the reduced salt version. In went the chicken, followed by lots of freshly ground black pepper and the juice of a lemon. To this you add 180g of previously cooked and cooled plain couscous. Mix well. Check for seasoning,.

Voila! This fed one adult for dinner, me as a little snack at 5 p.m. and did lunch today for me, too.

But we're not done yet! Chicken soup.

This time, I was not making stock, but a soup with plenty of meat left on the carcass. Just put what's left of the chicken in a big deep pan, cover with cold water and then add about twice as much again in volume. Add three large potatoes, peeled (or not if they are new), a fat bunch of broccoli,with only the toughest end of the stem removed and four carrots, chunked. Add another green vegetable, if you have it.I also added, for extra succour, a tablespoon of the Marigold bouillon I mentioned above.

Bring the soup to the boil and then simmer for about forty minutes. By this time, the meat will have fallen away from the bone, the vegetables will be soft and the broccoli will have virtually melted into the soup. Today, that's what I'm after. Check for seasoning and, when the soup is cooler, strip away the meat still on the bones and remove all the rest of the chicken bones from the soup. I don't mind with other meat if all the bones are still there; with chicken, I do. I would also remove the skin*, as it does not look or taste so good (if only in texture) when boiled in a soup. In reality, my children will probably have stripped it all off the chicken anyway.

This soup fed a weary traveller at 10 p.m. and will do dinner tonight for two, with possible seconds. Bread and cheese.


*Stretching the Meat

I have seen, in more than a few recipes from the American South, descriptions of how nothing, historically, was wasted. If you had some chicken skins, you would cut them into little pieces and then either roast them in the oven or fry them in a pan. They should be very crispy. Then, for example, just add them to a dish of mashed potatoes. It gives the potatoes a little crunch here and there plus a hit of deep savoury flavour. And that, so you see, is called stretching the meat.You'll either like this, or you won't. If you want to know more about such good sense, though, may I introduce you to Dori Saunders? She's billed as "America's favourite peach farmer" and grew up on one of the oldest African American-owned farms in South Carolina.I especially like Country Cooking. Recipes and Stories from the Family Farm Stand.

And Ladies and Gentlemen, now we have expended the chicken --and I hope nothing was wasted.